https://ballardofvirginia.com/lineage-group-ii-john-ballard-of-bitton-gloucestershire-england-and-nansemond-county-virginia-c-1629-c-1704/
Fourteen years after arriving in Virginia, John Ballard obtained his own land grant dated 2 June 1673, for 300 acres in Nansemond County.13 Available to read online on the website the Library of Virginia, this grant is extremely difficult to decipher; perhaps it is easier if one were to examine the original. The abstract in Cavaliers and Pioneers 14 notes that he obtained the grant for the transport of six persons: “His owne person, & Besheba his wife, Jno. and Joseph, his sons, Wm. Freeman & Jno. Napp.”

The fact that he paid his own transport indicates that he returned to England at least once and perhaps retrieved his wife and children to join him in the New World after securing his place there. Some researchers claim that Besheba was born in Nansemond County; we have found no evidence of this; nor does it make much sense for his wife and children to make the voyage from Virginia to England and back, given the trouble and expense of it.

John Ballard’s patent is mentioned in another granted to John Taylor, for 200 acres int he Upper Parish of Nansemond county, “adjacent Thomas Cowting; & John Ballard, 21 September 1674.”15 It is mentioned again in a patent of William Speight on 24 February 1675/6, who acquired 137 acres in “Nanzemond Co., joining on N. side of his father’s land, in the upper parish, now called Tho. Spright’s land; beg. by a muddy br. deviding this &c; and of Jno. Ballard; to his father’s als. Brother’s line; to line of John Battle, Junr; &c … Trans. of: Osman Crabb, 3 times.”16 Curiously (and incidentally), this Wm. Speight claimed an additional 117 acres adjacent to his own land on 24 February 1675/6 for the transfer of Osman Babb, twice.17